qutebrowser

I've been a long time Firefox user, but certain recent news have made me less than enthusiastic about the future of Firefox. In particular the news that Mozilla's top exec pay has increased by 400% while usage has declined, and they have fired roughly 250 employees. Mozilla's primary source of income is Google, which comes from Google being the default search engine on Firefox, this in itself seems like an ethical problem in my eyes.

Obviously you can change the default search engine quite easily, and where Firefox might fail to protect your privacy there will always be browser plugins such as adblockers, noscript and the like.

Still, I found myself wanting to look into different browsers. Now there are a lot to look for, such as the "ungoogled chromium", which is the Chromium browser, but with all the builtin Google parts removed. There are also Firefox forks that focus more on security. Suffice it to say, you are almost guaranteed to find a browser that suits your needs.

Personally I have a thing for minimal interfaces, and I REALLY like vim-like keybindings. On Firefox I was using something called Vimium, which adds vim-like keybindings for a more keyboard driven experience. Turns out there are also multiple browsers that aim for this goal, and this is where I find qutebrowser.

qutebrowser has a minimal interface and vim-like keybindings. The actual backend/browser engine is based on Chromium, but with all the proprietary and google bits removed. qt5-webengine is the name of the backend. qutebrowser itself is really just a browser interface that sits on top of the backend engine, so the qutebrowser developer only work on the interface. The qt5-webengine backend gets frequent security updates based off chromium, so security is not an issue.

By default, qutebrowser is no more privacy oriented than most other browsers, but it is easily configured as long as you are willing to take the time. I can easily and quickly enable/disable javascript for a particular website with just three quick keypresses on the keyboard. There is a simple host-based adblock built in, although a more comprehensive adblocker is in development currently.

Since the browser itself is so simple, there is no password storage, which I actually really like. Instead, it relied on pass, which is a secure password storage software for Linux, it uses gnupg to store your password encrypted. I need to manually enter in website url/username/password for pass in the command line, but after that's all done I can autofill password forms with a single keypress (this must be manually configured first). Navigating websites with just keyboard is also quite simple, to "click" on a link, or picture, or any other element, I first click on "f", which will highlight each clickable element with a keycode, which I then press to select an element.

I can of course also use my mouse if I want to, but I find myself relying mostly on the keyboard. I do realize that most people would prefer a browser with a more common interface, but I find this browser to perfectly cater to my needs and preferences. And I just wanted to share it in case others might be intrigued and want to try it out.

Here's a few screenshots, although there is not really much to show. Websites still look like regular websites, it's just the actual browser interface that is lacking the usual buttons and toolbars.



This next screenshot shows how clickable elements on the page will be highlighted after I press "f"

This browser can do most anything, since the actual backend engine is the chromium engine. Flash is also fully supported, but you would need to specifically enable plugins before you can use it. Personally I don't have flash installed, are there even websites that still use it? Besides, flash is a big gaping hole in your browser security.

I have actually specifically disabled webgl as well, since it is considered insecure. As for media content, it's no problem, I'm viewing 4K videos on youtube. But since the current adblocker is host-based, it can't block youtube ads. To circumvent this I have created a keybinding that will let me open youtube videos in mpv, which will completely avoid any ads.

I thought most sites these days that use interactive applications just write them in JavaScript. And video streaming does not require Flash either. I am honestly quite curious because I do as of right now only know of one web site, which is REALLY old, that requires Flash. And that is homestarrunner.com

Most modern browsers (Chromium and Chrome included) will not let you run Flash applications unless you click through multiple confirmations.

As for qutebrowsers keybindings, it's actually quite simple:

Not sure if anyone else were interested in this browser, but it has support for a proper adblocker now. Previously it only used a host-based blocker. I'm still getting youtube ads, but since I got so used to opening youtube videos in mpv (with no ads), I don't really mind.

The adblocking is is actually a python library, python-adblock, which is a python implementation of Brave's adblocking. The adblocking library is not directly related to qutebrowser, although the developer of the library is also a contributor to qutebrowser.

That is always a risk, but qutebrowser seems to have a small but dedicated following and team, so I am not worried. And the adblocker is just a python implementation of an existing adblocker.